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Month: April 2010

Seriously. I can’t believe some of the utter FAIL I’ve still been experiencing in HeroClix games lately.

Black Adam. I seem to make stupid tactical FAILs with this character more than any other. Back when he was new back in the Crisis events, I’d do ridiculous things like:

use his Impervious 254-point body to shield a 61-point medic from Outwit-equipped snipers. Barely escaped that game with a victory thanks to the time limit.

Hit Crisis Spectre hard with a Hypersonic hit and neglected to use the rest of his movement, leaving him completely vulnerable to the wounded but still-dangerous giant. I lost that game, snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory. Giant Hypersonic FAIL.

Lately, I’ve pulled Black Adam back out of the tacklebox. And I’ve made the same sorts of utter FAIL:

Didn’t use his full HSS speed with a full-health enemy V Icons Superman on the board, and didn’t really have much of a reason why I didn’t get him out of reach. Worse…I didn’t use his lower-pointed passenger to block line of fire to him. About three different FAILs. In one action.

Now with a new Black Adam as part of the Shazam! and Black Adam duo, I had another chance to do well by him…or not. See, I put Lunge on the guy (since he has Close Combat Expert much of his dial) and went to town, using the feat to get a quick one-hit-KO of Max Mercury. But later, I took a HSS chance to try to take out an enemy Brave + Bold Superman and lacked the speed to get back to relative safety.

Wasn’t until much later that I realized I’d forgotten Lunge, that would have given me the extra movement to not get so easily ganged up on by BB Superman and Wizard Shazam. Amnesiac FAIL.

In the same game, I utterly forgot BB Metallo was Indomitable, thus losing crucial attack chances. Lost that game. Double FAIL.

In the game previous, I didn’t use Goodness & Mercy’s SP Willpower to chase down a healing enemy. SP FAIL.

These FAILs paled next to today’s though.

Scenario: My Extant, way up on points and on his 1st click against enemy Flash (Justice League Super Rare) has a shot at long range. Afraid my 10 AV isn’t enough hit an 18 DV + Super Senses, I Phase in close. Flash proceeds to alternately Flurry, Hypersonic and generally pummel my weakening Extant to KO.

I wasn’t finished. Same tournament, tired of trying and failing to hit an enemy Black Flash, I pursue and base a wounded Max Mercury hiding on an Eleha’al Vine. Max uses Flurry to land 8 consecutive attacks to deal (with the other White Knight) my reducer-less Extant a bitter defeat.

Extant has full-dial Phasing and a 10 range. 10 RANGE! WHY WAS I BASING NON-STEALTHED CHARACTERS THAT COULD USE FLURRY….TWICE?!?

E101 RAGNAROK

What, it's the end of all things AGAIN?

WHAT TO BRING: Characters cards and/or keyword lists to make sure the characters are accounted for correctly.

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THE SETUP: All characters on a player’s force that have the keyword possessed by the most characters on that force (or the character that has the highest point value, if the characters possess no common keyword) are that player’s “Asgardians”. Any remaining characters are that player’s “Monsters”. Then, characters that have the Asgardian or Monster keyword can choose to become part of the group matching their keyword. Place eight objects on the battlefield instead of six, and do not replace any of them with special objects.

WHAT IT MEANS: Themed teams will lose out on some of the conditions and effects of the dial, so you might not want to build one. Super Strength will have a field day.

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TURN THE DIAL: At the end of each round.

WHAT IT MEANS: Steady-moving event dial.

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Treacherous Loki (brown, slots A-C): Choose a friendly character. The character can use Outwit and Perplex.

WHAT IT MEANS: You might want to field anti-Outwit tactics (Stealth, Fortitude, Outsmart, certain team abilities) because you WILL be facing the power. By the same token, building in a character to best use this effect would be a good strategy. But you don’t really have to, since you can switch your “Loki” from turn to turn.

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A Mob of Mjolnirs (lime, slots A-C): Monsters can pick up objects as if they possessed Super Strength. All objects deal 1 additional penetrating damage when used in an attack.

WHAT IT MEANS: No need to build in Super Strength to use all those extra objects…at first. But because the effect doesn’t last long, it doesn’t hurt to have some actual Super Strength on the team.

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March of the Trolls (blue, slots C-E): Monsters modify their speed values by +2.

WHAT IT MEANS: Move and attack powers get a boost here, so try to fit some among your non-Asgardians. It also helps your monsters act as good tie-up sacrifices.

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Rally at Vanaheim (black, slots E-F): Asgardians can use Regeneration.

WHAT IT MEANS: The majority of your build gets a second wind (maybe). Here it pays to build in piece that actually has Regeneration among your Asgardians and feat it with Automatic Regeneration to get extra mileage from this effect.

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Fall of the Trickster (yellow, slots G-J): Characters can’t use Outwit or Perplex.

WHAT IT MEANS: Suddenly all those powers and abilities you were so worried about earlier are safe. Now’s a good time to push the advantage, especially in conjunction with the next (and concurrent) dial effect…

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The Odin Force Returns (cyan, slots G-J): Choose a friendly character. The character can use the following powers as if it had a range of 12: Energy Explosion, Psychic Blast, Pulse Wave, and Quake.

WHAT IT MEANS: Field someone with high attack value and Running Shot and try to make sure they survive to this point so they can viciously explode your enemies to cinders.

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Last Battle (red, slots I-K): Once per action, Asgardians given an action or declared the target of an attack can modify one of their combat values by +1 until that action resolves.

WHAT IT MEANS: No Perplex (thanks to “Fall of the Trickster”)? No problem!

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All That Remains (orange, slot L): The game ends immediately. Each player receives 10 fewer victory points for each character on an opposing force that was not defeated.

WHAT IT MEANS: Here’s where building a bigger force (that survives) can yield some dividends. On the other hand, KOs are still king, and and smaller team of beaters will give up fewer points (again, if they survive).

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SUMMING IT UP: This dial is about speed-fighting to the absolute death, gaining as many KOs as possible in 11 rounds. Build for such and throw caution to the wind.

It’s that time again: another brand-new HeroClix set. Considering that this time last year we didn’t think we’d ever see one, I for one am quite grateful.

One thing I am not so grateful for, though, is WizKids’ ceasing to print the handy little checklists they used to pack in every booster. Yes, I’m sure they’re an ultimately needless expense, but the company could offer downloadable and printable PDF versions.

Fortunately, I’m a fairly talented graphic designer myself, so I’ve been crafting my own checklists since WizKids stopped doing theirs in Secret Invasion. Now that I have my own little HeroClix blog, I figured I should share.